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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
NASSAU HALL, the first campus building, is a three-story sandstone structure, with low pitched roof surmounted by a white wooden lantern. When Robert Smith of Philadelphia erected Nassau Hall in 1756, he produced all the building he could for the money and wasted very little on superfluous ornament. Stylistically it follows the later Renaissance of England. The entrance gable motif of arched doorway with stone balcony and arched window above is disproportionate, but age has lent the building a soft dignity, and ivy has relieved the Presbyterian severity of the rhythmic rows of windows. Sleek bronze tigers, the work of A. Phimister Proctor, flank the entrance steps. The tiger, the Princeton symbol, is derived from the orange and black colors on the Princeton Heraldic device.
Each year another ivy vine is planted by the graduating class. Stones bearing the class numerals are set in the building after a custom begun in 1870.
To honor Princeton's war dead the entrance of the building was remodeled in 1920 as a MEMORIAL HALL. Beyond Memorial Hall is the FACULTY Room, originally used as the college chapel. In this room funeral services of the Aaron Burrs, father and son, were held, and here Washington received the thanks of the Congress at the end of the war. On the walls are portraits of Woodrow Wilson; William, Prince of Orange and Nassau, for whom the building was named; and Washington, by Charles Wilson Peale, in a frame once used for a portrait of George II. The portrait is said to have been decapitated by a shell when Alexander Hamilton bombarded the British troops barricaded in the building. It was at Nassau Hall that Congress, frightened out of Philadelphia, received the first official news of the Peace of Paris (1783) ending the Revolution, and two days later received the first accredited representative of a foreign power, the Minister of the Netherlands.
The entire building is used for administrative purposes, although until the beginning of the 19th century it housed the dormitory, refectory, classrooms and chapel.
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